1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to interactive user interfaces (UI) within computing environments, and more particularly, to a system and method for implementing data set navigation.
2. Description of Background
Existing software tools have utilized diagrams to visualize data organized within large data sets, such as application structure diagrams, source code call graphs, procedure diagrams, and large network monitoring diagrams, for example. A diagram of a large data set may include thousands of nodes and connection lines between each data node. Therefore, user interface (UI) scalability, or the ability to present the large data set in a manner such that a user can effectively navigate through the diagram and find desired information represents a challenge for present software tools.
Present software tools provide an overview that displays a zoomed-out, higher-level view implemented as a thumbnail figure. Typical overview displays support only one level of mapping of a parent-child hierarchy view expansion, and do not represent the relationship among data siblings within a particular hierarchical level. A relative context between the present view and its parent as provided by the overview is changed when a user that is working with multiple views switches from one view to another. This may cause the user may become disoriented and lose track of how the data presented in a current view fits into a global context. Accordingly, there is a need for an enhanced data visualization and navigation arrangement.